Early editions of the Hebrew Bible
Open-knowledge reference entry
Jewish printers were quick to take advantages of the printing press in publishing the Hebrew Bible. While for synagogue services written scrolls were used (and still are used, as Sifrei Torah are always handwritten), the printing press was very soon called into service to provide copies of the Hebrew Bible for private use. All the editions published before the Complutensian Polyglot were edited by Jews; but afterwards, and because of the increased interest excited in the Bible by the Reformation, the work was taken up by Christian scholars and printers; and the editions published by Jews after this time were largely influenced by these Christian publications. It is not possible in the present article to enumerate all the editions, whole or partial, of the Hebrew text. This account is devoted mainly to the incunabula (many of which were used as manuscripts by Kennicott in gathering his variants).
First Hebrew presses
The first to establish a Hebrew printing-press and to cut Hebrew type (according to Ginsburg) was Abraham ben Hayyim dei Tintori, or Dei Pinti, in 1473. He printed the first Hebrew book in 1474 (Tur Yoreh De'ah). In 1477 there appeared the first printed part of the Bible in an edition of 300 copies. It is not really an edition of a Biblical book, but a reprint of David Kimhi's commentary on Psalms, to which the Biblical text of each verse is added; the text being in square, the commentary in Rabbinic, characters. Each verse is divided off by a sof-pasuk.
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